Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1879 — IMPERIAL INFAMY. [ARTICLE]

IMPERIAL INFAMY.

How Women Are Tortured for Teaching Russian Peasant Children to Read. London Telegraph. Another terrible narrative of the atrocities prepetrated by the Russian police authorities under cover of the "state of siege,” has just reached us from Geneva, where a journal is published in the Russian language called the Obschtscheje Djelo, and edited by Michael Dragomanow, an ex-Professor of the Kiew University. This paper, although inscribed in the Russian Expurgatorius, finds its way across, the frontier, in spite of that circumstance, with the utmost regularity. In its issue of of the 24th ultimo it prints a lengthy statement made by Olimpiada Kaflero, formerly a provincial schoolmistress in Russia, detailing the manner of her treatment at the hands of the "Third Section.” Early in the year 1877 Mile. Kaflero opened a school in the district of Wyschnyi-Wolot-schok, belonging to the Twer Government, and taught the peasant children for two consecutive years without exacting any school fees from their parents. On the the 16th of last June she was arrested without any previous warning and thrown into prison. Her narrative from this date may best be recounted in her own words. She writes as follows: "After I had lain for a few days in the jail of Wyschnye-Wolotschok the Governor of Twer, Sorrow, entered my cell one morning and acquainted me with the cause of my arrest and imprisonment. According to his statement my offenses consisted in having imparted instruction to peasant children, which is only permitted to male teachers, and in having fifteen years ago bean seen in a boat with several students. For having committed these erimes it was tha intention of the authorities to send me across the frontier. From Wysehnyi-Wolotschok 1 was conveyed to St. Petersburg, where I remained for a whole week iu jail. Thence I was transported by rail with fifty other prisoners tofWilna. From the Wilna railway station we were all marched late at night to the prison, where admission being refused' to us on account of the lateness of the night we were compelled to stand all night long iu an open court-yard under incessant torrents of rain. Next day we were led into a totally dark corridor and subjected to an examination of our elothes and persons. The women, of whom I was one, were searched and stripped by gendarmes, who committed the vilest atrocities upon us. When any one of us ventured to protest against their abominable outrages, she was struck and kicked with such brutal violence that blood followed the blows and kicks. This so-called "visitations” of the woman lasted several hours, amid the laughter and mockery of the soldiers. I fell into a deep swoon under their atrocious cruelties, and when I came to my senses I found myself lying on the stone floor, between two fallen women imprisoned for theft, who were doing their best to revive and comfort me in my affliction. Shortly afterward we were handcuffed and carried to Kowno, where we were received at the Female Penitentiary by the jail matron, Pavlovna, whose first greeting to us was a furious threat to smash all our teetn in should we venture to attempt either to read or write a word while in her prison. There I remained a whole week long, among convicts, murderers and thieves. We got scarcely anythiug to eat. At last I fell ill from the sneer exhaustion of hunger. Seeing my miserable condition, one of my fellowKrisoners gave me a morsel of bread. ut was espied in the act of so doing by the matron, who rushed at me and abused me in such language as you would scarcely expect to hear from a drunken and infuriated moqjik. At the expiration of this horrible week, we were again handcuffed aud marched off from Kowno on foot. A threedays march in frightfully bad weather brought us to Marianpol. My feet were covered with wound; my shoes full of blood. During my journey I had repeatedly complained of my sufferings to our escort and piteously begged to be allowed to rest, as I could go no further. Their only answer was,

‘Then we must drive you, you !’ At Marianpol I was taken to the sta-tion-master, as I could hardly stand, that he might decide whetherT should proceed on foot or be sent by rail. I showed him my bleeding feet and implored his mercy. All he said was. ‘You have managed to walk lor three days and you will have t* hold out for the fourth.’ On the fourth day we reached Wolkowyski, more dead than alive, whenee we were to l*e conveyed

across the frontier into Prussia. Meanwhile they locked us up in a guardhouse, men and women, all in one room. Their was neither bench nor stool —no, not even a wisp of straw to lie down upon. We had to stretch ourselves out, all together, as best we “fight, on the damp and filthy clay floor. The stench and vermin were intolerable, quite beyond description. During the night they turned In among us all the prostitutes picked up by the police In the public streets, as well as drunkards, thieves, and a stark-naked madman. Some of the prisoners at once com menced worrying and irritating this unfortunate lunatic, who began to foam at the mouth, and struck out in every direction, knocking us about with the most savage fury. From this den of inconceivable horrors I contrived to get a letter eonveyed te General Gourko, who promptly sent an order to the Prison Inspector that I was to he forthwith transported to the Prussian frontier. At E.vdtkuhnen I was handed over to the Prussian police, who at once set me at liberty. I traveled straight to Paris, and thence i to Geneva, where I slowly recovered ’

my health, and now write this, my That a lady of education and culture should be deliberately tortured in this inhuman manner, and subjected to the matt hideous description of outrage that can be inflicted upon a woman, merely because she had presumed to indulge her philanthropic Inspirations by teaching poor children to read and write gratis, is one of the many offenses against the lawe of God and man by the frequent and reckless commission of which the Russian Government has put itself outside the pale of civilisation. It cannot be but that an awfUl atonement awaits the barbarous wretches who thus revel in the agonies of the innocent—whose crimes outvie' those of the Inqusisition in heartless and cold-Wood ferocity. It should be remembered that Mile. Kafiero’s case is but a common one, of which the world would however, have never heard had the goal of her cruel journey been Siberia instead of. the German frontier. Thousands ot gently-nurtured women have undergone the torments she complains of, ruthlessly inflicted ru them on their road to the Ruspenal settlement by the savage functionaries of Czar Alexander. Rut their cries of distress nave never reached civilized ears. Once bound to the mines they are heard of no more by any whp knew them ere they fell victims to the most brutal and merciless despotism that has ever disgraced humanity.